Blackboard: Commencement; Nasdaq President Had a Cow

By Dan Cuff

Published: April 9, 2000

The University of Virginia, which has chosen Alfred R. Berkeley III as this year's commencement speaker, has apparently forgiven him for an infamous prank he pulled as an undergraduate.

''Al's success with Nasdaq has much greater emphasis and interest than something which happened years ago,'' said Wayne Cozart, director of alumni programs. Nasdaq, the stock market that Mr. Berkeley runs, has soared on the back of technology issues.

In 1965, Mr. Berkeley and five fellow Virginia undergraduates led a 250-pound calf to the top of the campus Rotunda dome, which is 50 feet high. Things backfired when the animal died after being given tranquilizers for the trip back down.

Until three years ago, no one knew who did it. But at a college reunion Mr. Berkeley bared his part in the caper and later paid $1,765 to cover the costs of trying to solve the case and the attempt to rescue the calf.

It wasn't the first time someone put a cow on the Rotunda that Thomas Jefferson built. It also happened 100 years earlier, university historians say.

Mr. Berkeley did not return calls seeking comment about the old prank and his new- found honor. DAN CUFF